You (People) Wreck Me

> From: Jeffrey A
> To: dn
> Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2008, 12:50 PM
>
> thoughts on the petty show?
> ~jeff.

Well, I tried to take my sweet time getting there so I wouldn't have to endure much Steve Winwood. We approached our seats just as he broke out a 30 minute rendition of "Higher Love", the song that had been in my head since you texted its title to me a week prior. Okay, maybe it wasn't 30 minutes, but it was definitely approaching 10 minutes. But the crowd was all over it! Steve Winwood! The KANSAS CITY crowd ADORED Steve Winwood! Needless to say, "Higher Love" is still in my head, and my sanity is due to break any time now.

My faith in humanity was further shaken by the freaks that sat in our section. We were in the "cheap" seats in the upper deck, but since those tickets cost $55 each I thought we'd be surrounded by die hards. Wrong. The teenagers in front of us spent the entire night -- THE ENTIRE NIGHT, NONSTOP -- texting their friends. I had a good look at the girl's phone, and I could see she was texting the same boy over and over. She wasn't texting, "OMG! LTWMJane! Petty rulez!". She was having a conversation about a trip to Chicago.

But she and her companion acted like National Honor Society members compared to the 2 college-aged girls sitting to their right. These winners had made shirts for the concert. One girl, who was overheard to remark that Petty was "my favorite! They're, like, #1 on my iPod!", wore a gray tank top with the words, "Don't Do Me Like That" on the back. The other girl had ironed on the letters "Learning to Fly" on the front of her gray shirt, and completed the masterpiece by ironing shimmering gold angel wing stencils to the shirt's back.

Well, they must have had a little pre-party to make the shirts, and that party must have included alcohol. "Don't Do Me Like That" spent the first 5 songs of Petty's set chugging $5.50 plastic bottles of Bud Light and dancing with her counterpart in the aisle. She spent the remainder of the show slumped back in her seat, struggling (and mostly failing) to remain conscious.

The older individuals in the crowd didn't fare too much better. A woman my age sat to my left; I caught her using her Blackberry a handful of times, probably to close some really big business deals. And then there was the 40-something, 250-pound, shaggy-haired man sporting jean shorts and a plain gray sleeveless t-shirt. When shuffling by seated audience members, beer in hand, to get back to his spot, he lost his balance and tumbled hard into the row below. As Petty's set came near its end, the OPENING CHORDS of "Refugee" played, the entire row in front of us stood and left, except for shaggy and his younger, less-disheveled companion. (It turned out to be the last song before the encore, but how did the row know? And why not wait until the song is over before taking off? OR WHY NOT STICK AROUND TO SEE THE ENCORE??) Seeing an opening, the two creeps left their seats for one directly behind the drunk/nearly passed out girl and her drunk friend. Sensing the chance to conceive the world's most retarded child, Shaggy hit on Drunky while the wingman hit on winggirl. By the time the encore ended (you should sit down for this one -- they closed out with "American Girl"), things looked to be turning sour, and I'm pretty sure the antichrist isn't in Drunky's fetus right now. But with the behavior displayed by the texting generation last night, the antichrist should be due for a welcome appearance very soon.